Highly mechanical properties nanocomposite hydrogels with biorenewable lignin nanoparticles

Recent advances in the synthesis of smart hydrogels

“…The properties of hydrogels are easily tunable by modifying functional groups 314 and incorporating functional materials [315][316][317] . Thus, hydrogels can be synthesized that possess important features including selfhealing 170,318 and extreme flexibility [319][320][321][322][323] with superior mechanical properties [324][325][326] and stretchability 327,328 .…”

“…The hydrogels have immense applications in tissue engineering, wastewater treatments, wound healing, antimicrobial applications 329 , and control drug release, but lack of mechanical strength has limited their applications substantially 324 , 325 . The bio-mimicking abilities of hydrogels have made researchers explore the means of enhancing the mechanical properties of hydrogels.…”

“…Many of the reported hydrogels are weak, brittle, and have low toughness, which somewhat limits their applications 330,331 . Therefore techniques of double networking 332 , interpenetrated networking 329 , triple networking 333 , synergistic copolymerization effects 334 , and nano-additive enforced networking 325 have been employed to tune the mechanical properties of hydrogels. For instance, Yan et al developed double networked hydrogels of PAAm and gelatin reinforced with GO nanosheets (gelating/PAAm/GO) (Fig.…”

Lignin‐Based Micro‐ and Nanomaterials and their Composites in Biomedical Applications

“…As mentioned before, lignin, with aromatic structure and hydroxy groups, is an excellent biopolymer candidate for developing biodegradable nanoparticles of benefit to biomedical and tissue engineering. Several groups have reported that lignin would have positive effects on the printing processing and mechanical parameters of the polymeric matrix, which convincingly suggests lignin as a printable feedstock for 3 D printing technology . For example, surface quality was improved and shrinkage reduced during the printing of a PHB composite filament containing 20 wt % lignin in comparison to that with pure PHB .…”

“…Lignin nanoparticles in this hydrogel systems are an important co‐crosslinker that results in a unique network structure with PAM chains. A hydrogel with excellent mechanical properties and high recoverability is realized owing to the synergic effect of the nanocomposite network structure and strong hydrogen bonding . Gan et al.…”